


Aiming Favors

by paburke



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Unusuals
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, Jason Walsh is Clint's cover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:29:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1318165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paburke/pseuds/paburke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint had enjoyed being Jason Walsh -for the most part- but it was friends made that he tries to keep past the assignment.  Merging a cover with his real life is not supposed to be this easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jebbypal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jebbypal/gifts).



“Shraeger,” the young detective answered her phone.

“Ask me about my day,” he demanded.

Casey outright laughed at him. He could hear the sounds of his partner from a former cover getting comfortable. “Alright, I’m ready. What happened to you that’s going to mean work for me?”

“I got ordered to bring a date to Stark’s bash Friday.”

“Uh-huh. I bet you did. I told you exactly what would happen if you showed up stag.”

She had. The girl could predict the ‘upper class’ every time. And though Clint (and Tony) had been endlessly amused by the ensuing catfight, Clint had been explicitly ordered not to allow it to happen again.

“I know you’re not asking me to be your date, so what are you asking?”

“For you to convince a certain Latino detective that the dress in your closet that fits her perfectly was your mother’s mistake and you can’t take it back.”

“Doable. What’re her exact measurements?”

Clint rattled them off.

“And what do I get out of this?”

Clint would offer her another favor to be redeemable at any time, but she already had two and he had a feeling that when she called the IOU, he was going to pay until it hurt. “Don’t you want to be captain?” he whined. He could easily make it happen with a whisper in the right ears.

Casey laughed at him. She would make station chief someday, mostly because she could counter the upper power plays as easy as breathing and could balance million dollar budgets to a dime. She was quickly becoming the darling of all the officers since she had done her time and never once had used her money to get ahead. Casey was already one of the best detectives and when the day came that she could do more good with increased power, she’d take the job, but not before.

“How about a date with Captain America?”

There was enough of a pause to know that (the unbribed-able) Casey Shraeger was tempted. “I’m sure Captain Rogers can find his own date… and you know how much I hate blind dates.”

The time that Casey’s mother had set her up with a US Representative was still talked about in hushed tones in the Capital building, but Clint had an ace up his sleeve. “Steve went stag to the last party too.”

He could _hear_ the wince.

“Well, he’s learned his lesson.”

“He could use a tutor to navigate the world of the One Percenters and Tony drives him nuts.”

“Stark drives anyone with a biological brain nuts. That’s why he’d subsisted on airheads and robots for so long.”

“And Pepper?”

“She’s the exception that proves the rule.”

Clint had forgotten how much he liked bantering with Casey. “So can I put both Steve and I down for plus one?”

There was too long of a pause, so Clint cajoled, “You know it’ll be easier to get Allison here with you dressed up beside her.”

“You think I can’t get her to show without?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can.” Clint was quick not to challenge her. “Look, Steve’s a great guy who could use a few pointers. He doesn’t act entitled because he’s not.”

“Ugh, I’m going to regret this. You’re going to owe me _two more favors_ and I’ll collect them, I promise.”

Clint fist-pumped while she couldn’t see his jubilation. He was actually looking forward to this party.  

*********

Tony broke a longstanding post-party tradition by showing up on the exclusive golf course at nine am. Him being here stunned many people, him crashing the richest group on the links surprised no one.

“So I had a party last night,” he announced to the group.

While the other three golfers grumbled about not being invited, Tony’s target calmly lined up his shot. “And here you stand, sober and the party didn’t make the news. Please offer Ms. Potts my congratulations on a job well done.”

Tony had earned that so he shot back, “Sounds like Casey inherited her sharp wit fair and square.”

Shraeger was smug when he drove his ball down the fairway with a preciseness Tiger Woods would envy. “Casey wouldn’t bury your misdeeds, so should I expect them in tomorrow’s paper? No offense to the efficient Ms. Potts and expensive legal team, but I’d bet on my daughter every day of the week. She never gives up. She’ll find someone to print it.”

Tony wondered if Casey was aware of this blatant fatherly pride. “She was a guest.”

The stunned silence was beautiful. It was almost worth being up at this horrible hour.

“You’re here to collect,” Shraeger said, confused for obvious reasons. His monetary reward for getting his daughter to a high-class event had Casey invited to _everything_ for years even though she had ignored the invites for just as long.

“Yeah, I offered Steve and Casey ten-grand out of my petty cash to let me go back to sleep but they wouldn’t take it. Your daughter, Steve Rogers and Pepper are the unholy trinity when it comes to getting things done.”

“I want proof.”

Tony unlocked his phone to last night’s photos and handed it over.

Shraeger was pleased with the fun his daughter had had. He blanched at a certain picture and Tony was expecting the, “Is she arguing with Colonel _Fury_ , right there?”

“Yeah,” Tony grinned at the memory. “He offered her two jobs during the course of the night and the Black Widow was so impressed that she was trying to prove to your daughter that she really wanted either of those jobs.”

“She turned them down,” Shraeger knew his daughter.

“Without pause.”

“NYPD is better than SHIELD,” he decided.

“Yeah,” Tony mused. “The police commissioner looked like he was counting the years to retirement to be sure that she wouldn’t boot him out of a job.”

Shraeger beamed with pride.

“’Course, we want her in the Avengers Initiative. She said no to that too.”

Shraeger pulled out his checkbook to hand over the money immediately. Tony wished they could do it all electronically. Shraeger paused in writing, “What does she want with the ten-thousand? Why didn’t she go to her trust fund?”

“Don’t know, but she and Steve have a plan and now they have Pepper helping them. I’m sure they’ll do great things with it.”

“I look forward to seeing my daughter in the newspaper,” Shraeger declared.

And really, there was no come-back for that.

 

*


	2. Undercover Missteps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to Clint's time undercover.

_Never pull anything cute while undercover_ , Natasha’s rule echoed in his head.

Despite the quirky personnel of 2nd Precinct and the awesome girlfriend, Clint had been bored as Jason Walsh: too little adrenaline. And it wasn’t like he could stop having perfect aim. So when his firing range results started being repeated on the streets, he didn’t think anyone would catch it.

Now Sergeant Harvey Brown had Walsh’s range silhouettes on his desk with photos of the suspects he’d shot. They matched as only Hawkeye could make it happen. It was bad enough that Brown had caught the gaps in ‘Walsh’s’ career between stations as Clint had been out of the country on SHIELD business and had tagged him with Shraeger, but now this?

Damnit, Natasha was always right and he was never going to tell her that.


	3. Smashing Perceptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the jebbypal prompt: Casey and co to help corral the hulk

Clint’s phone rang. It was Allison. That was the only reason he answered at all. “Mission,” he snapped. She understood. She often answered the phone ‘case’ and hung up on him.

As he moved to hang up he heard her yell, “The Hulk…”

“Come again?” After all, they had destroyed the doombots but had lost their fifth member in the middle of Manhattan. How something that loud and violent had vanished among eight million people, he had no idea. Tony had tapped into the emergency phone system but no one had called 9-1-1 yet.

“Oh good, you’re listening to me.”

“Where is the Hulk?” Clint asked and he gained the attention of every Avenger.

“He and Shraeger are playing pool games in the Central Park Lake, near the boathouse.”

“We’re on our way.”

And sure enough Shraeger was hip deep in the Lake trying to splash the Hulk. The Hulk was further in the water and succeeding in splashing her. The young detective was soaked head to toe. All of her electronics were probably trashed, but she had so little care for the material as only the very rich did.

“Her whole outfit is unrepairable,” Natasha said.

Tony paused in taking pictures with his phone. (The PD was being effective and had established a perimeter and was quietly evacuating Central Park. Everyone leaving was on their phones but none of them had bothered to call the cops because they were too busy telling everyone they knew that the Hulk was just a big green kid in the kiddie pool if no one was shooting at him. As long as no one frightened the Hulk, everyone was safe. Letting Bruce tire himself out was the best solution. It was PR _pure gold_ for the Hulk.) “Yeah, no. Normally, I’d just hand her a couple of Benjamins when she got out, but that’s Shraeger. I hand her money and she’d liable to throw it in my face and if she tells her father, the very lucrative proposition Pepper and the elder Shraeger are cooking up falls through and I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“It’s Bruce’s problem,” Clint offered. “Let him make amends.” The scientist had more than enough funds to replace Shraeger’s outfit and police equipment now that he had a Stark Industries salary.

Steve made a strangled noise. “Just so long as he doesn’t take her out to dinner to apologize.”

The team turned to stare, smiles curling their lips. “Why Cap?” Tony teased. “Are you dating the intrepid detective?” No one had realized that their first blind date had led to more.

Steve focused on the scene in the Lake and tried not to blush. They all saw it anyways. “Casey and I are none of your business.”

Clint grinned at Natasha and Tony was just grinning. 

This could be fun.

Tony’s phone beeped. He glanced at the screen. Whatever he read made his eyebrows creep up his face. If anything he was grinning bigger than before. He was tapping on his phone faster than Clint could follow. “Legolas, you still have that pic on your phone of Hulk and that kitten from the after action a couple weeks ago? Nevermind. JARVIS, Instagram it and send it to my phone.”

“Stark, what’s going on?” Steve asked.

“There’s a Hulkplays hashtag on both Instagram and Twitter and it’s going viral. I want to keep feeding it while it’s overwhelmingly positive. I’ve got the internet presence to overwhelm the naysayers. The Army won’t be able to claim Hulk is a mindless rage-monster when the whole internet knows otherwise.”

Tasha whipped out her phone. “I caught a shot of the piggyback ride Hulk gave Clint.”

“Perfect. Gimme, gimme.”

Clint face-palmed. He looked completely off-balanced in the photo but at least his face wasn’t in the shot. And he had been too busy holding on to shoot anything so it didn’t look like it was in the middle of a battle.

“I also have one where he’s carrying you like a football,” she told Tony.

Tony had no shame. He smiled in remembrance. “That was fun. I’ll take it.”

Steve moved forward.

“Hey, Cap!” Clint called. “Where’re you going?”

Steve rested his shield over his shoulder and straightened his uniform. “I’m going to go play,” he said in all seriousness.

Point. The man knew how to make the most of a photo op. Clint stepped forward to join in. He detoured to Allison on his way to the Lake. He left his bow and quiver in her care. And his phone. “Just keep taking pictures,” he requested. Clint knew that the rest of the team would be joining the fun shortly.

This wasn’t the battle he had planned on fighting this morning, but it wasn’t one he planned to lose either.

Clint lost track of time in the water. He did know that Casey bowed out early on. She understood the media and the public’s desires as much as Tony. Everyone would love to see the entire Avenger team playing like kids without the police detective in the shot. Also there were probably tens or hundreds of photos of her and Hulk already circulating.  
When the Hulk started shrinking into the Bruce-shape, Tony-still in his Iron Man suit- picked him up and flew him back to Stark Towers. Clint, Natasha and Steve trudged back to shore. Allison and Casey were waiting. 

Casey had Clint’s phone and was still taking pictures.

“You can stop now,” Natasha grumbled.

She did, since she was handing over the phone. “I got lots of prizewinning shots. You’ll have plenty from which to choose.” No doubt. Shraeger had plenty of practice making other people look good in front of the camera.

Allison waved her phone. “And I have a bunch of Shraeger coaxing the Hulk into the water in the first place.” She offered her phone to Clint. “This is my favorite.”

Clint had to laugh at the captured moment. Casey and the Hulk were frozen, both mid-jump over the water, grinning at each other. He immediately sent it off to Tony to spread around. “Thanks.” He picked up his belongings, snuck a kiss, arranged for a date later in the week and then followed his teammates to where Happy was waiting in the limo. He was tired.

Wearing out the Hulk was more exhausting then fighting doombots.


End file.
